...there was a lot of expectation. The almighty guru ofsoftware, Jeff Minter, alias Yak the Hairy had written a game forthe best games machine ever. It had to be great. It was based onan old classic arcade game from Atari, and this particular gamehappened to be one of Yak's favourites. It had to be great. Themagazines had had endless previews, showing truly psychidelicpictures from the game. It had to be great. Imagitec Software hadbeen assigned especially for the making of the soundtrack. It hadto be great.

One day, a small parcel arrived

"Tempest 2000" had landed. The first impression when looking atthe packing was: This looks like a bad Japanese shoot 'em up. Iquickly opened it and threw the before mentioned ugly packing outof sight. Oh no, the same picture was on the cartridge. I pluggedit in. I knew that although everything had been ugly until now,the game itself had to be great.

I was so right

"Tempest 2000" opens with a large logo in many layers, whereevery layer except for the top one moves in different directions.It's sort of like an infinite sprites thing, just bigger than youwould normally expect. The soundtrack is great, a slow technopiece with some very worrying notes thrown in. Already at thisearly point, you sense the greatness of this game. If you don't push anything, the game proceeds to show the highscore list, complete with Yak himself ranking as number one. Inthe background, the vector graphics of one of the levels arebobbing along merrily, turning on all axes as vector graphicsrather like to do. Then comes a demo of the game, and unlikenormal demos, this one can take place in a number of differentlevels. When you eventually decide to press one of the keys onthe joypad, you are presented with the main menu, which is quiteamazing. No, no, I didn't have too much vodka, this main menureally is an attraction. You have the options, which are great ofcourse, as they are the main options of a truly great game, butthe really interesting thing is the background. An Atari logo thesize of the screen floats along in multicoloured plasma. This,ladies and gentlemen is a full screen true colour pixel perfect(okay, so the logo itself jerks just a little bit) plasma effectwith static graphics in a front layer and a high qualitysoundtrack to accompany the whole thing. Ladies and gentlemen, itcertainly is showtime. From here you can choose which incarnationof "Tempest" you want to play (for there are several) and if youwant to change any of the games' configurations. If you choosethe latter, you can either configure the joypad exactly how youwant to or you can set interlace on/off and slim vectors/fatvectors which is exactly what it says it is. As a default, thevectors are fat, and this does look the best. On to the game(s).

TEMPEST

This is a Jag version of the original game. You (a boomerang-like thing) crawl around on the outer rim of a 3D web. Imagine atunnel shaped as the web stretching into the screen. You have theability to move in two directions and to shoot with an infinitenumber of bullets. On a circular web, pressing left on the joypadmakes you go anti-clockwise, and right clockwise. It's a bittricky to master the first couple of goes, but you get the hangof it before long. Every time you move you enter a new sector ofthe web, and it is the sectors that make up the tunnel. When youfire, your bullet follows the sector you are in to the very endof the tunnel. And it is from this far end of the tunnel that allthe nasties come. They move towards you through the sectors, andif they reach the rim of the web, on which you are, they willalmost certainly catch and destroy you. If you're lucky, youmight shoot one or two of them, but you're practically dead ifone of them reaches the rim. So the object of the game is simplyto kill these nasties before before they reach you, by shootingthrough the sectors. When the game reckons you have killedenough, you are taken to the next web, which has a new anddifferent shape. This game uses simple vector graphics and sound effects(although the soundtrack is still there if you want it to) andthereby stays faithful to the original game (although I do seemto recall that the original game had less colours, but maybe I'mwrong). This version of the old "Tempest" game is as addictive as ever,and it's great for practising before entering the real thing -"Tempest 2000".

TEMPEST PLUS

This is a sophisticated version of the original "Tempest" game.In addition to your ordinary old everyday "Tempest" enemy thatjust flies towards you and does nothing else, there are a numberof other bad guys 'n' gals (I suppose) around. These do veryheavy things like moving through different sectors on their wayto the rim or firing at you and building spikes. These spikes areplaced in the middle of sectors (actually corridors if you insiston using real "Tempest 2000" terminology) and can kill you justwhen you think all your worries are over. When you complete aweb, you zoom down through the tunnel, ready to warp to the nextweb; but if there is a spike at the end of the sector you arezooming through, you will be cut up, and you'll have to do thatlevel all over again. As you zoom through the tunnel, you havethe ability to move through the sectors as usual, so you mustwatch out for the spikes. It's very tempting to roll around injoy on your way out, but it sure is dangerous too! To make things easy when you're but a wee "Tempest" dude withlittle or no experience, you can choose to have a droid followingyou in the webs. The droid floats above the rim and can take anyposition it likes. It shoots at your enemies but never hits you.That's what friends are for. This option is only available in"Tempest Plus". If you have two joypad controllers, you can playwith a friend (or an enemy, what do I care!) instead.

TEMPEST 2000

This is what you have all been waiting for. The real thing. Theright stuff. The 21st century version of "Tempest". "TempestPlus" never happened. Well, actually everything from "TempestPlus" is there, but so is a lot more. There are more enemies likeelectrical charges that can electrify an entire sector and fryyou long before they reach the rim. There are giant Demon Heads(biggest baddies in town) that whirl towards you and there aremirrors that send your shots right back in your face. There areof course other nasty things going on, but you'll have to buy thegame to find out what they are. To cope with all this, you also have the ability to get morepowerful by collecting power-ups. Visually, these are rays of reddots that fly through a sector now and then when you have justblasted an enemy to bits. These power ups can give you bonuspoints or extra abilities. Bonus points are okay, because you geta new life for every 10000 points you score, but they don'treally help much in the heat of the action. For immediate help,you need hardware. First of all, there is the pulse laser whichis much more efficient than the one you have when you begin alevel. Then there is the ability to jump, and if you're good atit, it can save your life any day. It enables you to jump fromthe rim of the web, while spinning to the position of yourchoise. This way you can shoot your enemies straight on, leavingthem no chance to catch you, fry you or shoot you. You have towatch it though, as you can't stay off the rim. Whenever youjump, you bounch right back, so you have to make sure you don'tland on top of anything that doesn't like being bounched on. Nothing you'll ever meet on the web likes to be bounched on. If you're lucky, a power-up will reward you with a droid likethe one in "Tempest Plus", and then you're almost certain tocomplete the level. If you collect enough power-ups in one level, you get aLlamasoft logo, which is your ticket to a warp. When leaving theweb on the level where you have received the third ticket, youwarp to a bonus level instead of the next web. The first bonus level is truly a strange experience. You flyalong under a large plasma surface that has to be seen to bebelieved. It always reminds me of the monolith in "2001 - A SpaceOdyssey". Your objective is simple - to fly through some colouredrings. Every now and then there is a "speed up" token in yourway. These are best avoided, but that's almost impossible. If youtry, you are bound to miss the next ring, and then it's adios. Atsome point, the speed gets up there when you just can't cope withit any more. To make things even more frustrating, you sometimeshave to fly through the plasma surface to find the next ring,which is on the other side. A really great piece of music playsthrough this level, and the whole atmosphere created makes youfeel like you're really into it, like your brain is hotwired toyour Jag. You play the first easy levels of the game over andover again just to gain access to this weird and wonderful bonuslevel. In the second bonus level, you have to follow a green path thatwhirls through a tunnel of multicoloured dots. I'm not quite surehow to do this, so I'm afraid I really can't say much about it,but I'm sure it's great like everything else in this game. The third bonus level? How much time do you think I can putaside to play computer games? When you f*ck up in one of the bonus levels, it's straight on tothe next "normal" level. The bonus levels act as a sort of "chillout" between the mayhem of the ordinary levels. When you play Tempest 2000 for the first time, you can choose tostart at any of the first 10 levels. If you die on levels 11 to21, you have to start all over again. If, however, you make it tolevel 22, then you don't have to fear death, as you will get alevel key to level 21. This key is saved in the cartridge andgives you the ability to start at levels 1 to 21 every time yousubsequently play Tempest 2000. You don't have to use level codesin this game. Brilliant! To get the key for level 23, you mustmake it to level 24 and to get the key for level 25, you mustmake it to level 26 and so on. Using a key you can access alllevels prior to the one the key is actually for. There are 100 levels in Tempest 2000 and when you have completedall of them (fat chance!) you get the choise of playing in"Beasty Mode", where your shots are weaker and the enemies arefaster and more lethal.

Conclusion

"Tempest 2000" has got to be one of the best computer/videogames I have ever played. It looks great, it sounds great, it'sfrightfully addictive, the levels are well thought out and as faras I can see, there are no bugs at all. I have played this gamequite a lot and everything has always worked the way it wassupposed to. Amazing! Jeff Minter: You have created a masterpiece!!! (sound trumpets)

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VERDICT:

Name: Tempest 2000Programmed by: Jeff Minter of Llamasoft (sound by Imagitec)Distributed by: AtariGraphics: 9Visual effects: 10Soundtrack(s): 9.5Sound fx.: 7Playability: 10Hookability: 9Value for money: 10Great-o-Meter Rating (tm): 14Overall: 10+Price: £44.99Manifest: Cartridge, registration card, 14 page manualHardware: Atari Jaguar (no other console could handle it)Comment: If you have a Jag, stop reading now and go buy the game. If you don't have a Jag, stop reading now and go buy the Jag and the game. The overall value for money rating will still be 10.

Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared
in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s)
was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes,
bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and
tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact
and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any
kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are
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texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.